Catching a flight in the New York region will soon include the prospect of taking a trip through a full-body scanner first.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced Friday that the scanners, which use imaging technology to display near-naked images of airline passengers, will be installed in the three major New York-area airports in September.

Exactly how many machines will be installed is unclear, but passengers leaving from La Guardia, Kennedy and Newark Airports can expect to be ushered through one as they pass through airport checkpoints. Passengers who do not want to be scanned, however, can opt to be patted down and walked through the standard metal detector.

According to the Transportation Security Administration, at least 142 scanners are now in use at more than 40 airports, and the agency says it plans to have more than 450 in place by the end of the year.

The planned arrival of the machines was reported Friday by The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Proponents of the machines argue that they are necessary because standard metal detectors cannot detect nonmetallic explosives, which can be hidden in clothing. But critics say that terrorists can hide explosives in body cavities, where they cannot be detected by the scanners, and many worry that the machines will expose passengers to potentially harmful levels of radiation.

The security administration has played down concerns about radiation, saying two-thirds of the scanners now installed use only minimal levels of radiation, while the remaining third use a form of radio wave technology.

(Source: NY Times)